The US economy is caught in a system-wide debt trap rooted in the design of its currency. Its economic future depends upon the current policy decisions of US monetary authorities and their international counterparts. The stakes, as they say, are high.

International development is a messy affair. Nobody quite knows what works. Various schools of thought, each trying to help in their own way, compete for the ‘right model’ of development. Economists say that poverty is caused by poor capital accumulation or restricted markets. Social scientists argue that it’s caused by a system of oppression. Other schools, each with their own bogeymen, focus on everything from overpopulation to cultures of laziness and corruption. But which is right?